Saturday, June 30, 2007

I started the mystery stole last night. I've done 71 rows, with several froggings. As soon as I start watching what's happening on telly, I screw up. I've pinned the piece on a styrofoam piece that came from a picture frame packing. Well, it sort of worked.

This pattern is more complicated than I am used to knitting. But I like it, even though I tend to have trouble focusing on the chart. I have four different colors for the stitches and one color for the rows that I have finished. Yeah, I had to frog about four rows, and going back was fun, because I already had highlighted the done rows.

I've done sweaters, where the pattern repeats more or less withing 10 - 30 or so rows. That is much easier. There has not been any repeat on the stole, yet. I am using some yarn that I found in my stash. It's acrylic, and I'm using size 2.5 mm needles. The yarn is from France, and I must have bought it years ago, since I cannot find any info on it in the web. The name is "Chanteleine Perle".

Unfortunately I have to stop knitting and continue with the crochet summer top. I put the pieces on top of a fabric top, and looks like I need to crochet a lot more pieces.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

I promise not to make another swatch for the mystery program. My latest one is done with Italian Cashmere. I bought the yarn at Knit and Crochet show last summer. That was in Valley Forge, PA. I intended to use the yarn for a nice sweater, but have been busy doing other things, so the sweater must wait.

Here is the swatch, pinned on an ironing board. It's not evenly pinned, but at least I don't have to be perfect all the time.

And now it's time to finish my IC summer top. The Knit and Crochet show is around the corner.

You might remember, or not, there is renovation going on at my work. The space around the desks is full of boxes, binders, various items that are not in boxes. The brand new carpet needs cleaning already. Oh, why didn't they install the carpet last? One room is being enlarged, and the dust from the drywall and stuffing is everywhere. It's a mess everywhere. I hope most of the work is done by Tuesday.

The good thing about this renovation is that we have been able to leave early on Fridays, and tomorrow we will leave at noon and go back to work on Tuesday. Of course Monday would have been off due to Canada Day on the first of July, but now we get extra long weekend.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

This is the one I made last night. I tried several yarns, and then had to prove to myself that I could knit with ultra thin yarn. My needle size could have been smaller, but I couldn't find the set (figures). The yarn is on a cone, the size is for one of those knitting machines that knit the thinnest yarn under the sky. The color on the cone looks peachy, but on the swatch it looks PINK. I cannot imagine continuing with this color. I have, somewhere, same weight yarn, and asked my hubby to find it today. The other yarn I have is very light grey. BTW, isn't photoshop marvellous? That swatch does not look pink, it looks peachy, doesn't it!

A girl must think of gifts already.

So, this morning, before I came to work, I was going to be late anyway, and had made the time up, but I was early from my lateness from work, so I decided to go to WallyMart to see if they had size 2 mm knitting needles. Yup, the short ones, to knit socks. Well, I am NOT going to knit socks, but going to test the lace knitting with the ultra thin yarn.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Now I've done it. I joined yet another group. This time it's a Mystery Stole group.

I made one swatch last night, and believe me, I am embarrassed to admit that I frogged it several times, row by row, to the beginning garter stitch part. I have no idea how could I have either one stitch too many or one not enough. How does that happen on lace knitting?

I spent at least 3 hours making that little 35 stitches and 32 rows piece. I cannot believe it.

Of course I had breaks, like coffee and some telly watching but basically I was just knitting and swearing.

Here is the piece. I am not too good at blocking, so try to imagine how pretty the piece is.

The color is faint yellow, it almost fainted when I decided to spray water on it. If I don't feel like crocheting tonight, I'll make another swatch; using row counters and stitch markers, and bigger needles and different yarn. If not, then I will just crochet.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

I have concluded that it is not a good idea to hide the yarn/thread ends as you go, if your project requires lots of little pieces, even bigger ones. This applies definitely to my freeform crocheting.

I am working on a summer top, using size 10 thread. My project has many motifs, many picots, and many rows of joining.

One of my bigger pieces seemed to warp too much to my liking, besides it didn't fit with other pieces. I have now spent hours trying to first find the beginning of the row, only to discover it's the wrong way row. Trying to find the beginning, where the thread would unravel easily, as in if you have a run in your knitting, it would immediately run like hell, but no, not in crochet. Even when I got the right end, and was happily frogging the row, then came a picot, and sure enough, the thread stops. There was no reason for it.

I have cut and cursed and perhaps sobbed a bit, but I still have one piece to separate from the guilty piece, the one that has million picots, and warps the most. I would make a new piece faster than trying to take something apart, but I don't want to. I like that miserable piece very much.

You can see the cuttings in the picture, warping doesn't show too much any more

In conclusion, I think that I will hide the ends after, and get frustrated then, rather than now. I do such a good job, if I may say so myself, that nobody is ever going to find anything on the wrong side.

Did I mention that the motifs are joined with another motif, and then some rows of loops and picots and clones knots, etc. and then another motif joined. Hence there are many beginnings and endings.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Reading patterns from the Irish Crochet books and leaflets can be challenging for someone who has just started doing this type of crocheting. Like me!

When I read, the first time, about the ring thing, winding the padding cord million times around a match, my first reaction was that I didn't have matches, just lighters. Well, I figured that a knitting needle would have about the same size as a match. Can you just imagine my attempts to get a ring going with size 10 thread? Those instructions were for size invisible thread...not really, but that's how I felt. I think the common thread size was between 40 and 100. I don't even own anything thinner than 20, unless we are thinking about sewing thread.

After several attempts, I gave up, made a chain link and crocheted around that one. My ring was not puffy enough, but it didn't really matter, because I am working on more or less freeform Irish Crochet (please forgive me, if this offends someone), but my hook will not obey too many rules on patterns, just the basics. Of course there are several very beautiful motifs that cannot be changed in any way, but something that goes in between the motifs can certainly be freeformish, in my very humble opinion.

What else did I do? I put my crochet hook beside a knitting needle and wound the padding cord around both of those. When I had enough rounds, I carefully picked the working thread with my crochet hook, still married to the knitting needle, and made a few stitches around the pc. Then I released the ring, and started working on the pc. WOW, that was easy. I have now tried different sizes of needles, even a pen, and I have no problem making a nice, puffy ring.

Instead of picots, which I have made several already, I have started making clones knots. However, I only wind the thread twice or three times, and I get a nice picot looking knot, which is much easier to make than the normal picot. Clones Knot is easy to make after a few tries. The only thing I need to be careful with them is not to make the winding too loopy.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

My office has about 20 boxes full of stuff from my filing cabinets. I have emptied smaller boxes that contained most important items, like my personal papers, grooming tools (I need tools to fix myself) and some recent work that I need to do pretty soon.

I took a picture of my boxes that were sitting on someone else's desk, while my office was occupied with carpet people, painters and other important work people.

Our whole office is under renovation, and it's starting to look pretty good. We have brown filing cabinets, brown doors, and trimmings, mustard color wall on one side and lighter yellow on the other side. Carpet is a combo of those colors. Looks sort of mustard yellowish brownish....

My crocheting has been steady, hence no postings, not too much reading my e-mails, and not much of anything else. BUT the vest is done, last week, but haven't blocked or washed or what ever I have to do to make it look finished. Oh, and the buttons are missing. That is a problem, I didn't make button holes.

I am now working on the Irish Crochet top, for me, and I have a fairly sizable pile of IC pieces, that need to be put together. I just keep making motifs, and keep going like Duracell.

This is one of the IC motifs, I made four of them, but I don't have any pictures of other motifs.

There are some that I can relate to someone. Assmosis is one and the other is Stress Puppy.Stress Puppy gets on my nerves nearly every day at work.

I sometimes confuse myself with 404, but then again, I don't know where 404 is.

The last few weeks have not been the greatest. But hopefully things will get better. Hubby had a surgery on Thursday, and is at home, recovering. I spent six hours in the hospital crocheting, waiting first to get hubby to the OR, and then while he was there, and after. I got some majorstitches done.

Last night finally, I was able to try my vest on. Hubby thinks it's beautiful. He's smart. I am now finishing off the front and the hem, and then look for buttons. My Irish Crochet top is also coming out nicely, but that one isn't going to be done anytime soon.

As soon as the vest is done, I will post a picture, and might even find time to post more often.

About Me

Dolls are my thing -
I will knit or crochet
on a whim -
I will knit a sweater
if I must -
Give me yarn and needles -
and you can feel my lust -
Poet I am not -
but with knit and crochet
I can create a knot.